Capturing Pieces vs. Pursuing Checkmate in Chess

Learn the pros and cons of capturing pieces versus pursuing checkmate from Chess NYC in this Howcast video.

Transcript

Hi, This is coach I am gonna show you a combination that actually may be arguably the greatest player of all time, certainly one of the greatest, who is used. This game although its not an outstanding game, I am sure he is a pawn and it is quite fearful at the fact that he was playing the world champion or soon to be the world champion at the time. This game illustrates very clearly an important point which is that chess is not just about capturing pieces the name of the game is check mate, that's what we are trying to do check mate our opponent's king and prevent our king from being checkmated and will sacrifice our entire to that end.

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So from this position and never mind quite how we got here. queen to f7 check, the king only has one move d6 and now the series of sacrifices begin knight to c4, the pawn is cutting off the e5 and c5 so we have to take the knight and then knight to e4, the other knight jumps in check. The king only has one move d5. Now we introduce a new attacking piece the rook, it cannot be taken by the pawn which is pin by the queen so we are forcing black again to take, it could have taken the pawn as well but it take the more valuable knight.

Now introduce again a new attacking weapon rook A to e1 check sacrificing pawn now white its in with c3 on check the king has one move d3 and now to end the game we have rook to d5 double check, bishop to f7 double check, checkmate and if we notice white's given up two knights, bishop at nine,ten, eleven twelve points worth a material has only captured five points a material while its the black king that's checkmated. So chess is not just about capturing pieces.